


All I Want To Do

by Cosmicserenity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27653477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmicserenity/pseuds/Cosmicserenity
Summary: Being in The Empty is a horrible experience.Turns out, surviving it is even worse.After surviving The Empty together, the two of them realize that the price they had to pay was immense- and Dean doesn't know how he'll be able to survive without what he lost.Now stuck between grieving his sacrifice and moving on with Castiel, Dean ends up being a mix of emotions until he finally and officially confesses.---So you know the ending, right?Well thats not important anymore! This is the new one.In this one, Dean goes with Cas into SuperHell(tm) and somehow, they make their way back out- but not without a price.(If y'all want the actual scenes where they pay said price, lemme know- but I might just say fuck it and write it anyway.)
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Destiel
Kudos: 20





	All I Want To Do

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Brockhampton, Brent Faiyaz and Ariana Grande for helping me create this alternate reality xx

The scent of spring and freshly cut grass was floating through the air like an easy dream, and if Dean squinted hard enough, he could almost see the morning horizon. Or imagine he could, at least.

It was early in the morning, too early for him to be up and moving about outside of the bunker, but he couldn’t bring himself to go to sleep. He was too busy reliving the past few days, reliving _everything_ , through newly clouded eyes and an empty gaze as he sat on top of the trunk of the Chevrolet Impala.

When Castiel began to fall into The Empty, Dean jumped into his arms and followed, not giving a damn about the consequences. He wasn’t going to let Cas leave him alone like that- confused, and nervous, and a mess. Dean wanted more, but more than that, he needed _him,_ which was a fact that was both terrifying and exhilarating. Entangled in each other’s arms like dry tree branches, into The Empty they went, falling down, down and even further down until they reached the bottom after an eternity of watching their souls break and reform in the air like a morbid sort of starry night.

And when they finally stood up, breathless and exhausted, they were met with The Empty itself, wearing a thousand faces, a thousand eyes and a thousand voices that changed with each second. Frightening shit. 

It was beautiful and ugly, intoxicating and eye-opening, and it managed to speak without opening Its mouth even once. With upturned eyes, it laughed at them, calling them fools and buffoons (which irritated the two dead men greatly), but by its sinister look, it was willing to make a bargain. Apparently, It had already made one with Lucifer just moments before the men’s untimely arrival.

Knowing they didn’t have a choice, Dean and Castiel made that bargain, despite also knowing it was a shitty idea, and agreed to sacrifice their ‘greatest asset’ in order to return to Earth as conditions for the deal. For Castiel, that meant his heavenly-given power, and for Dean, that meant the one part of him that had allowed him to make it this far.

His sight.

After being touched by The Empty’s winding fingers and robbed of their 'assets', transported back to Earth and beating Chuck’s ass (something Dean never thought he’d be able to put on his resume), they had reached the end of the story. Now, Dean was blind, Castiel was mortal, and God was too. That was the textbook answer that Dean had come to accept, devoid of all emotion and simply stating fact.

But secretly, Dean was still a mess of scattered feelings under his worn face and glassed over eyes-as much as he didn’t want to be and didn’t want to show it.

He had lost a part of himself that was so important, so _irreplaceable_ , and as the hours passed, he had been struggling to come to terms with the fact that there was no chance of getting it back. His life as a hunter was over, his life protecting his brother was over, and now he had to make the transition into a ‘stable life’- whatever the hell that meant. He had sacrificed it all, and he had sacrificed it for no other reason than to hear two words from the man he had gradually ended up falling in love with.

“...Hello Dean.”

“...Hey Cas.”

He felt the trunk of the impala sink under the other man’s weight, and he gently clasped his hands together to try and keep himself from showing any more vulnerability than he already did.

Dean expected him to say something. To offer half-hearted condolences or try to lighten the mood between them. He _expected_ something, though he didn’t want to hear _anything_ , but to his surprise, there was nothing but silence. 

Probably because both of them knew there was nothing that would ever replace the pieces of themselves that were lost solely because they wanted to be together for just a little while longer.

Still, Dean hated the quiet.

“So...what?” His voice was withered and dry, like the creaking of a rickety old staircase, and the way he pushed the words out only added to his everlasting exhaustion. “Do we just sit here forever? Awkwardly, like this?”

“I didn’t want to say anything that would hurt you.”

“He made me blind, not a little bitch.”

“I see.”

 _I see_. 

_What was that supposed to mean? Did he come off as too harsh?_ He didn’t mean to hurt Castiel, but he just couldn’t control what he felt, or how it came out in every little thing he did recently. _Did Cas notice? Did he hate him now?_

Fuck. Dean thought he had Castiel figured out- that he knew what every inflection in his words meant and what every sentence he said hid within itself- but now, he didn’t know anything anymore. He was just so _sensitive_ all of a sudden, and _tired_ , and _weak_ , and he didn’t know what to _do_ . He didn’t know what he _wanted_.

He wanted Castiel next to him, but then he wanted to be alone.

He was looking to the future, but then he was stuck in the past.

He was in love, but then he was too afraid to say so.

For the first time in his life, he was indecisive, and the thick silence that sat between them sure as hell wasn’t helping him make up his mind in the slightest.

“I never wanted this, Dean.” Castiel said, and the soft but sharp sound of his voice made him feel a painful twinge in his heart.

“Do you think _I_ did?”

“Of course not.” 

There was a brief silence before Cas continued.

“...I just wanted you.” 

Dean exhaled in a bittersweet laugh, trying to ignore his quickly sweating palms and memory of Castiel’s earlier confession back when everything had first begun to shift into place.

“I’ve been told that I have that effect on people.” 

Then, it was awkward again, and Dean could hear the shifting of a coat as Castiel shuffled in his position. What was he doing? Was he nervous? Was he going to leave? Dean tensed at the thought of it, though he didn’t try to continue the conversation, but Castiel proved that he would be able to say enough for the both of them.

“Dean.”

“Yeah?” His voice was nonchalant, though his heart was beating in his throat, and he prayed to a God that no longer existed for Castiel to drop the subject. They could talk about anything else, about anyone else, but not about this. Not anymore. 

Dean didn’t want to talk about it- because he knew that if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He didn’t want to admit how he truly felt, or talk about how he had been having nightmares for the past three days, or say that he had developed a habit of shaking like a leaf whenever he was alone for too long. He didn’t want to hear an apology, either, because that would just make everything _worse_. He just wanted to keep everything bottled up, and move on like nothing ever happened. Like he could see, and hunt, and fight, and fuck around just like normal. 

_Please, Cas, for the love of everything, don’t say anything. Don’t say **it.** _

“I’m sorry.”

_God, you said it._

“Oh look at that, everybody. Castiel is sorry.” Dean squeezed his eyes shut and put on a show of irritation, trying to ignore the feeling of his body coming apart at the seams and melting against the rising heat of the morning sun.

“What’s that gonna do for me, Cas? Is that gonna make me be able to hunt again, or take away from everything that had ever happened to me? Is that gonna bring everything back to what it was supposed to be? Is that gonna magically make me see again?”

_Is it going to let see your face and sink into the depths of your eyes one more time?_

“Don’t do this, Dean.” Castiel protested.

“That’s right, it’s not going to do shit.” Dean took his response as an answer to his question and gave a gruff nod, too angry to stop talking but cringing at how his voice was beginning to crack and crumble the more he spoke. “So I’m sorry if I don’t want to hear your apologies, or if I’m more snarky than you fucking want me to be, Cas. Unlike you, I kinda liked how I was before. Before I was-”

He stopped short of finishing his sentence, but they both already knew what he was going to say. He had said enough already.

_Before I was broken._

Castiel didn’t speak and Dean didn’t continue, the two of them sitting once again in that fatal silence that was slowly growing more and more familiar, and Dean felt the Impala lift as Castiel stood up and turned around, his shoes shuffling against the grass. _Fuck, he was leaving._ Dean didn’t mean to make him leave. He didn’t mean to say anything that would remind them of what they had done, but now it was too late, and all he could do was try to fix the fence that he had nailed so many holes in already.

“Listen, I’m sorry, alright?” Dean grabbed Castiel’s wrist and kept him close, reveling in the sensation of it but keeping the emotion at bay. “That was a dick move.”

Castiel didn’t leave, but didn’t sit back down either, and Dean felt like he was holding on to a fraying thread as the possibility of being alone again gnawed at the back of his brain.

Well, at least he had finally decided that he wanted Castiel next to him.

“I’m just.. I’m not handling the ‘being blind’ thing well. I’m not handling any of this well. And I’m…” he swallowed. Did he really want to admit it? Say the words out loud and empty his heart like this? It was a battle of pride versus raw emotion, a battle that was quickly becoming more and more one-sided, and before he knew it, Dean had already let the confession enter into the air and swirl around the both of them.

“I’m scared.”

And soon after he let the words escape, then came the tears, burning and falling down his cheeks one after the other as he kept his gaze low to the ground. He didn’t want Cas to look at him like this, sobbing and emotional, but as he felt the man’s palm on the side of his face and his thumb rubbing his tears away, he knew it was already useless. Surprisingly, he didn’t really mind it that much.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do anymore, Cas. I can’t see, and I can’t hunt, and I can’t protect you. I can’t protect Sam.” He turned to Castiel and shrugged, giving a tired smile as he tried and failed to see his face one more time through the mist of grey fog that clouded his vision. 

“And the worst part is, I can’t bring myself to regret a single thing.”

“I always thought that I’d be alone. I would see Sam with his girlfriends, and I just… I didn’t think anyone would ever like me enough to be with me like that. To care about me. To love me. But then came you, with your weird little trench coat and your smile that made me… feel things… and everything I thought back then turned upside down all of a sudden.” He cleared his throat and felt butterflies start to flutter in his chest, this ‘confession’ making him feel an all new layer of discomfort that he was both addicted to and dreaded. “When you told me you-- When you told me what you said,”

“That I loved you?”

Dean’s face reddened at how easily Castiel was willing to admit it, and he clenched his jaw as he turned away. The things he managed to do to him and the ways he managed to make him feel were gonna kill him one day, weren’t they? 

“Yeah, that-” He continued in a broken stammer, rubbing the nape of his neck. “-I realized that I… I felt the same way. And then I knew that I didn’t want to lose you again.” He said ‘didn’t want to’ because he was too stubborn to say that he ‘wouldn’t have been able to take it’, but that was a confession for another day. He still had a bit of pride left- after all, he was a Winchester.

“Everything I did, everything we sacrificed- it was worth it. Because in the end, I can have you next to me and not worry about... losing you anymore. I can be with you. And I can kiss you, and dance with you, and _live_ with you.” Dean put his hand on Castiel’s, leaning into the touch of his hand on his cheek, and tried to keep himself from letting anymore rebellious tears come from his eyes. He didn’t want this to be a sad moment, because he’d be damned if he would ever repeat this again.

“And I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or in 5 years, or when we both keel over, but I know that I’ll always want you next to me-- because I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to be myself again without you. So, for the love of god, just stay next to me. _Please_.”

There it was. It was shaky, and messy, and Dean felt icky with the amount of emotion that seemed to be oozing out of him, but it was still all so beautiful. He was in love with Castiel, more than he had ever been with anyone else in his entire life, and the fact that he was able to admit those feelings to him in the best way he could felt better than eating blueberry pie in the bunker and watching old reruns of General Hospital. Shortly after that euphoria came the worry that Cas wasn’t going to accept his feelings now that he was a total wreck in front of him, but the overwhelming sensation of Cas’ body around him took the thought from his mind just as swiftly as it came.

Castiel’s arms wrapped around Dean’s body and held on tightly, pressing his lips to his and making Dean fall into an abyss of ecstasy that he wanted to get lost in for eternity. The taste of spearmint flavored Chapstick sent shudders down his spine and made flowers bloom in his mind, the sheer warmth flooding into Dean’s senses and overloading his heart with nothing but the sensation of pure bliss. With shaking hands, hands that were afraid of the future but content in the present, he placed one on the back of his angel, the other on his head and let his hold linger for what felt like his own version of forever.

When they pulled away from each other, further apart but still so _close_ , Castiel let the words spill from his lips in a whisper, the sounds of validation so soothing in Dean’s ears that he was almost certain he’d become addicted to it before long.

“That’s all I want to do, Dean.”

  
~~~  
EXTRA

“There’s a call in-”

Sam had a horrible sense of timing, which was made even more obvious when he walked in on Dean hunched over Castiel on the sofa, some of their clothes half-off and their lips damn near glued to each other as they laid on the cushions and gave subtle, muffled groans that echoed through the room. Apparently, the ‘braille tutoring sessions’ were an excuse to do something else- something that Sam very much did not want to think about.

“Gah, can you guys get off of each other for 2 seconds?” He groaned, shuffling around to face the door as the two of them sat up and tried their hardest to act like they were being productive.

“Don’t be mad just because you’re single.” Dean winked, putting his arm back in his jacket sleeve.

“I’m not mad because I’m single, Dean.” 

“I’m sure that you’ll find a nice little Tinder date in our next location, Sam.” Castiel piped in. Dean had told him about the idea of Tinder dates a few days ago, and after hearing that tidbit, he didn’t regret it one bit.

He cackled, hunching over at the thought of it, and it didn’t take a genius to know that Sam was growing increasingly flustered by the second.

“Tha-That’s-” He stuttered before giving a huff. “Just get ready to get in the damn car, you two. We’re headed to Scottsdale.”

“Sir yes sir.” Dean said with a lingering chuckle, whistling as he heard the door shut behind Sam’s embarrassed footsteps. 

Dean shook his head with a smile and turned to Castiel, looking in his direction with his usual coy smirk and raised eyebrows. “I could never be tired of you, do you know that?”

“I’d hope not, Dean.” Castiel leaned in closer to his boyfriend and put his hand on his, his face inches from Dean’s as he looked up at him. “Because I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Kissing his forehead and letting his lips stay for just a second longer than usual, he pulled away and smiled at the butterflies that still managed to fly in his chest just like they did every single time he was around him. “...I don’t either, Cas.”

“Hurry Up!” Sam called from outside the room, and Dean rolled his eyes. One man loses his eyesight and next thing you know, his little brother’s acting like he rules the world. Still, responsibility was responsibility, apparently, and at the sound of a familiar engine rev, Castiel and Dean knew Sam wouldn't be waiting for long.

“Coming, Sam.” Castiel called, and Dean couldn’t stop the frown from forming on his face when he felt Cas stand up and walk ahead. Soon stopping just in front of him, Cas outstretched his hand and waited for Dean to take it.

“Should we go?” 

Dean should have known better than to think that things would change, or that life would be different. Surviving The Empty, defeating Chuck, killing vampires and zombies alike- it was all part of routine for the three of them, and that's how it would be until the day things ultimately ended- but that wouldn't be happening anytime soon. In the end, there was only one truth that bound the three of them together, and it was one that would last for eternity.

The Winchesters saved people and hunted things.

And there was no end to being a Winchester, was there?

_...Good._

Dean sighed in the most dramatic way he could, though the grin on his face was betraying the ‘begrudging’ attitude he was trying to have, and he took Cas’ hand like it was made for him and only him to hold for every day of his life.

“Absolutely.”

**Author's Note:**

> Do take into note that this is in no way an attempt to villainize blindness as a disability! Wanted to get that out there just in case =D
> 
> Adios!


End file.
